Splinter
by Freya Ishtar
Summary: *GIFT FIC FOR BRIGHTKI* When Hermione loses the ability to tell reality from dreams—in which she somehow befriended 18 yr old Severus Snape—she seeks Lucius Malfoy's aid, fearing a Dark artifact at work & accidentally pulls him into the same predicament. They know they must choose between realities, or go mad. But neither wants to leave Severus behind. (ADULT CONTENT)
1. Picking at Wounds

**AUTHOR'S NOTE****: THIS FIC IS A GIFT FOR BRIGHTKI. My regular readers, I apologize & ask for your understanding. I have not jumped ships, and writing this fic will not interfere with the update cycle of my ****other stories.**

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><p><strong><span>Disclaimer<span>****: I do not own Harry Potter or any affiliated characters.**

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

Picking at Wounds

He was staring again—she could _feel_ it.

Sighing, Hermione set down the stack of scrolls she was checking through and looked up. "For Heaven's sake, Harry, it's_ just_ new a hairstyle!"

"I know, sorry," he said, chuckling as he dropped his gaze into the bundle of seemingly random things he was bringing to the desk. "I'm just not used to seeing so much of your face, I guess."

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't help a grin. When she'd arrived to help Harry sort through Snape's things, left untouched in the Head Master's office—despite the passing of months since the end of the War, and the start of a new semester at Hogwarts a little under a week ago—she realized she should have warned him that she'd had her bushy mane professionally straightened and chopped off at her shoulders.

It might have saved her looking up every few minutes to find her best friend staring at her as though he'd never seen her before.

He shrugged as he started pushing parchment and knickknacks around. "I suppose after the same look for seven years—"

The groan rumbling out of her cut his words short. She'd needed a change after everything. Not just the War; her relationship with Ron crashing and burning just after it had started, the Ministry being unable to fix her parents altered memories.

Her decision to accept a certificate of graduation from Hogwarts, despite that she technically hadn't finished her schooling—a move which surprised everyone. She just couldn't shake the feeling that to return to her student life would be lying to herself; it would be pretending things could go back to the way they'd been.

She would be nineteen in a few, short days. And she had no idea what to do with her life. Of course, many departments in the Ministry were clamoring for her to take a post within their ranks, but she couldn't decide.

At the very least, Shacklebolt had tried to make amends for not being able to restore her home life by securing her room and board at the Leaky Cauldron free of charge for as long as she required it.

"Can we please talk about _anything_ else, Harry?"

"Sorry," he said again. "I've officially moved into the house on Grimmauld Place."

She bit her lip and nodded, opening a scroll that turned out to be a collage of moving pictures. From Snape's time as a student, it appeared. "Is it hard living there, now? With Sirius' things, but without him?"

Harry nodded as well, biting his lip as he shifted to look at the pictures over her shoulder. "Yes, but I'd rather be there than anywhere else. Only wizarding family I had, after all."

"Suppose that's why Professor McGonagall left Snape's things for you to go through." She spoke without thinking, without realizing what her words meant, prompted by Lily Potter's smiling face flicking about in some of the images before them. "No family of his own, really, and knowing now how he felt about your mother, you're the closest thing to it for him, aren't you?"

Hermione glanced up at him over her shoulder. The look on his face—his jaw tight and his watering eyes narrowed—made her wince and she dropped the scroll as she turned around. "I'm sorry, Harry. I . . . I didn't realize you're taking his death hard."

He sniffled, shrugging as he went back to his own pile of items to sort. "Neither did I."

"Here," she said, pushing the scroll toward him. "Put this with the things you're keeping."

Harry took it without a word and put it into the crate. Anything they left behind, McGonagall would either dispose of, or store, if relevant to the school in any way.

She picked up one of the knickknacks, a small orb. The swirling light inside flickered and alternated . . . purple to red, red to yellow, yellow to green and finally back to purple. Such a pretty little bauble, but it was probably no more than a decorative paperweight, or something equally innocuous. Muggle knickknacks were _so _dull, by comparison.

Setting it aside, Hermione went on to the next scroll. Another set of pictures. This one of . . . . "Oh, God. I think . . . I think these are the Death Eaters _before_ they became Death Eaters," she whispered, her voice thin.

Harry came back to her side, peering at the images. Certainly, he could recognize Severus Snape, by his long, dark hair and painfully fair skin. Those deep, haunted black eyes. As if to off-set that was a young Lucius—if Severus was eighteen in these pictures, Lucius couldn't have been older than twenty-four—his hair long, as well, and pale as Severus' was dark.

"Terrifying to see them so unimposing, isn't it?"

Hermione spoke, again without thinking as she rolled up the scroll and waited for Harry's direction as to where she should place it. "What's terrifying is that Snape was actually nice to look at when he was our age."

His eyebrows shot up over the wire-rims of his glasses as his gaze landed on hers.

"Oh, don't give me that look, it was _only_ an observation." Her shoulders slumped as she added the scroll to the crate. She was starting to think Harry was going to keep _everything_ out of fear he might accidentally ignore something which had been important to the man who'd sacrificed so much.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

Hermione busied herself with emptying the desk drawers. As she set a few items down, she realized she must've jostled the desktop, because that orb of shifting light rolled toward her. Catching it carelessly in her palm, she put it back where it had been with a shake of her head.

"Do you ever think he . . . he was so hard on me because I made him think of your mum?"

His eyebrows drew together, and he nodded nearly before he realized he had responded. "Actually, that makes sense. Muggle-born, bright, showing up pure-bloods."

She pursed her lips in thought. Had she known about Lily and Snape's friendship when she was his student, had she understood that his harshness with her might not have had to do with _her_, at all, she might not have hated and feared him so much.

As she watched Harry flip through a few documents, she opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again. He'd lost nearly everyone close to him, lost a man he only felt close to after death . . . the last thing he needed was for her to keep picking at his wounds.

He shoved a few pieces of parchment aside and hit the orb. Hermione arched a brow as she put out a hand, once more easily catching it as it rolled off the desk.

Harry chuckled, making a dismissive waving gesture with his hand. "That thing seems to like you. Might as well keep it."

With a laugh of her own, she walked across the room to drop the orb into her bag.

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><p>Yawning, she kicked off her shoes and dropped her bag beside her pillow.<p>

Hermione stretched and fell backward onto her bed. She had no idea how it had taken them the better part of the afternoon _and_ evening to get through everything. And then, of course, there had been a visit with Professor McGonagall. Who knew the woman could be so chatty over a late cup of tea? Well, at least now the professor could relocate her things from her old quarters to the Head Master's office without concern of disturbing a dead man's affects.

She wiggled out of her jeans and shifted, pushing herself up onto her pillows. Her bag fell sideways and she jumped at a sudden spot of cold against her shoulder.

Turning her head, she saw that the orb had rolled from her toppled bag out onto the bed.

With a sigh she scooped it up, examining the pulsing, swirling light. Her gaze drifted over the dance of shifting colors across her skin as she rolled it between her palms.

There had been so many things she wondered as she'd stood there amongst Severus Snape's last worldly belongings. Things she didn't dare mention to Harry. And not just because she didn't want to pick at his wounds, again. But because it would sound like she was trying to rationalize the path the man had taken, and the choices he'd made.

And, she'd realized with an unpleasant twinge in the pit of her stomach, it would have sounded like she was blaming Harry's parents. She wouldn't have intended it that way at all, but she knew that's how he would have perceived it.

Furrowing her brow, she let her eyes drifted closed and rolled the orb across her forehead, the cold of the glass against her skin soothing.

But still she couldn't help wondering. Would he have pursued the Dark Arts, had he known_ that_ would keep Lily from being able to love him the way he'd wanted? Would he have gone on to become a Death Eater, had he not felt betrayed by the girl he loved falling for one of his tormentors, of_ all _people?

After all, hadn't Harry said Snape's memory showed that he wouldn't allow anyone to call _her _a Mudblood because his use of the word—once and so very long ago—had cost him Lily's friendship?

He'd been a Death Eater, so he was hardly virtuous; hardly a soul made of sunshine and daisies, by any measure.

But those eyes in the old pictures, so sad and dark. Young, sort of strangely innocent . . . . Not the eyes of their potions professor, at all.

Not the eyes of the man who'd _allowed_ himself to be reviled and misunderstood.

She let her eyes drift closed, the orb rolling down her pillow to rest against the crook of her neck.

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><p>Chestnut eyes blinking open, she looked about, the breeze across her face sweet and brisk. She found herself on a stone bench in the garden area just outside St Mungo's.<p>

Was it Spring? Autumn, maybe? She lifted her gaze to the sky above and found something very wrong.

"Why is the sky purple?" she asked herself, needing to hear the words aloud.

"Because it's _always_ purple?" A deep, yet snide voice nearby answered. "But then I'd wager a guess that's one of the reasons you're here. Which _fun_ thing do you have, delusions or amnesia?"

Hermione turned her attention to the voice to find a pair of young, strangely innocent, suddenly familiar jet eyes staring back at her from a pale face beneath a wealth of dark hair. Her potions professor, before he'd become her potions professor, before he'd become a Death Eater . . . .

He couldn't be any older than she, right now.

She spoke before she could stop herself. "Snape?"

The young man looked taken aback. Darting that dark gaze about, he tilted his head toward her. "I'm sorry, have we met? Did . . . did we attend Hogwarts together?"

She stood up and he forced a gulp, backpedaling a step as she moved toward him. "I must be dreaming," she whispered.

His brow furrowed as he shook his head. "Why do you say that?"

Hermione looked about, once more. Everything seemed so . . . _real_. She could hear the buzzing hum of conversation from people gathered nearby, and the wind rustling through the leaves of the trees in the garden. The air was still just as brisk as a moment ago as it blew gently across her skin, and . . . she could read the name of the hospital across the side of the main building.

She shook her head, uncertain what was happening. One wasn't _supposed_ to be able to read in their dreams.

The young man tugged at her sleeve, but seemed reluctant to actually touch her as he tried to get her attention. "Should I get someone? What's the name of the Healer you're seeing?"

Laughing in spite of herself, she shook her head again. "I'm _not _a patient here."

"Says you, you're the one thinks you're dreaming and doesn't know what color the sky's supposed to be."

Narrowing her eyes, she propped her hands on her hips as she glared up into his face. "That's because with what's going on at this moment, I can't _not_ be dreaming right now, thanks very much."

Severus rolled his eyes and set his jaw. Why he was arguing with a woman who was _clearly_ mad was beyond him. "Would you like me to _prove_ to you that you're not dreaming?"

Her fists slipped from her hips and stood a bit straighter. "How?"

Lifting a finger, he arched a brow as he said, "First promise you won't jinx me."

Hermione offered a sideways nod, looking down herself. She was clad in a black, vintage-seventies dress and as far as she could tell, didn't even have a wand on her.

"Yes, okay, I promise. Give it a go."

His shoulders—broad for his wiry frame—slumped as he shook his head once more. Those black eyes were just a little wide, as though he didn't know what to expect from her. Like she might just bite him, which she found highly insulting. He reached out and pinched her on the inside of her forearm.

She jumped, shocked by the unexpected stinging.

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><p>Hermione started awake. Catching her breath, she bolted upright and flicked on her bedside lamp.<p>

Pushing her shortened locks out of her face, she caught a quick glimpse of the inside of her forearm. She noticed a little spot of red there.

After a strained heartbeat, she brushed the tips of her fingers across the discolored skin. A hiss escaped her lips at the faint soreness from that ever-so-light amount of pressure.

Like someone had_ pinched_ her.

"What the bloody hell just happened?" she asked herself in a bewildered whisper.


	2. Lucidity

**I would like to apologize to those who have fav'ed, or are following this story. I should have mentioned in the first chapter's Author's Note that the updates will be sporadic.**

**In case you should wonder while reading (because I know it will be asked why it didn't occur to her sooner), Hermione's trying to pick apart the logical reasons first, and then whatever is left behind will be her answer is her thinking.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

Lucidity

"Maybe . . . ." Harry shrugged, his green eyes scrunched in thought as he and Hermione shared afternoon tea in the sitting room of the house on Grimmauld Place. "Maybe you pinched yourself in your sleep—like you rolled over the wrong way and just caught your skin against the bedpost, or something—and just didn't realize it."

Her lids fluttered in rapid blinks as she fixed him with a death-glare. "You don't think I've already considered that?" Biting her bottom lip, she shook her head as she once more rehashed the specific line of events from her dream the night before in her head. "There was premeditation in the dream. The action was something which was led up to, not a spontaneous occurrence at all, which _accidentally_ pinching myself awake would suggest."

"Maybe it only seemed that way. Maybe the Snape in your dream was going to do something else, but then you pinched yourself and in that split-second it took for you to recognize the pain—because you were dreaming—whatever his action was going to be changed to accommodate the sensation?"

She only pursed her lips. That sounded like it could be right, it simply didn't _feel_ right. And it also sounded rather like years of her influence were finally rubbing off on Harry.

With a sigh, he shook his head at her lack of response, setting his tea cup down in its saucer. "Look, you said yourself after going through his things yesterday, you fell asleep wondering what he was like . . . _before_. You can't tell me you don't see a connection between that and having a dream about meeting him as he might have been at our age."

She shot him yet another withering look. "Yes, Harry, of _course _I thought of that, too."

"Well, excuse me," he said, curling his lip, but a glimmer of humor in his eyes.

Shoulders drooping, Hermione gave in to a laugh at herself. "I'm sorry I'm acting so . . . ."

"Bristly?"

Once more she laughed. "That is a word for it," she said, nodding. "I'm sorry it's just . . . . You'd think we'd be used to weird things after all we've been through, but it's just . . . . I don't know. It felt so real."

"You said you knew you were dreaming, right?"

She nodded, picking at the last of the biscuits Kreecher had set out on a plate between her and Harry.

"So it's lucid dreaming, then?"

Again Hermione nodded.

He smiled gently and reached out, placing a hand over hers. "So, do what you do best."

Her eyebrows drew together in question.

"Find some books on it," he said. "I'm sure if you have explanations in front of you, in black-and-white, you'll feel better. It's always helped you in the past."

She brightened, feeling better already. "You're right."

He winked and snatched the biscuit from beneath her hand. "I know."

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><p>"You may have been right, but apparently so was I," Hermione said in an aggravated whisper as she slammed shut another of the books she'd purchased upon returning to her temporary home after she'd left Harry's house. "This is useless!"<p>

Fighting a yawn, she turned around to grab another book, only to realize the one in front of her—the one she just finished—was the last of them. With a grumble, she went back to the first one, deciding to look again; perhaps she'd missed something.

She highly doubted it, but then anything was possible.

As she flipped back the cover, the print swam before her eyes. Shoulders slumping, she reached for her mug of coffee and brought it to her lips. Once more she grumbled as she found she'd already emptied it.

Blinking hard as she shook her head, she looked to the clock. No wonder! She'd been up half the night. Hermione closed the book, again, and pushed it aside. If she wanted to get an early start tomorrow and see what other dream-related books the shop had, she should probably take the hint, rather than refueling.

She extinguished the lantern on her desk as she scooted back her chair. Standing, she gave a long stretch and spun on her heel to walk to her bed. A sad little chuckle escaped her lips. She didn't know if whether or not it was depressing that she was starting to think of The Leaky Cauldron as home.

And she was certainly not going to think that for the second year in a row, she was celebrating her birthday without her parents.

Her lips folding inward, Hermione shook her head and forced away an instant upwelling of tears at the realization. Last year had been different. She'd been with Ron and Harry, trying to save the Wizarding world one Horcrux at a time, certain that—if she survived—she'd have more birthdays to share with her mother and father. Now . . . now she knew she'd never share one with them again.

Shaking her head once more as she forced a second, louder laugh, exactly as mirthless as the first, she slapped her hands against her cheeks. "Stop it, Hermione, just . . . stop, okay?"

After a few calming breaths, she pulled back the covers and climbed into bed. "Staying up 'til all hours is bad for the brain, Hermione," she told herself in sleepy sing-song as she pressed her cheek firmly against her pillow.

Moonlight streamed through the window's flimsy curtains, giving sparse, dappled illumination to the room. Brow furrowing, she watched a spark of light dance across the surface of the orb—smartly wedged between a hairbrush and the corner of her old, leather-bound journal to keep it from rolling anywhere—on her bedside table.

Her eyelids drifted down as she wondered if maybe the universe understood how tender her emotions were as of late, and perhaps she should consider the pretty glass sphere a birthday present. Something to make up for the ones she wouldn't receive from her family.

A bitter sigh tumbled from her lips as sleep crept over her.

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><p>She felt like she was lying down. Inhaling deeply, she smelled the fresh, crisp scent of grass. That must be the cool, damp feeling beneath her skin—dewy blades of grass.<p>

The sunlight overhead created spots of orange & black behind her closed eyelids and she lifted her arms to fold her hands behind her head. Her dress bared her legs and the dusting of a breeze across her skin made her shiver a little, but it was an oddly pleasant sensation.

Hermione knew she was dreaming again. But, again, she felt as though she was awake.

"You've returned?"

She started at the agitated voice that barked the question. Blinking her eyes open, she squinted at the figure leaning over her. Even though she recognized the snide tone, she still held up a hand to block the light so that she might see who it was more clearly.

He looked confused and aggravated, at the same time.

Frowning, she had to force out the words—needing to remind herself that this was _not_ the Severus Snape she'd known. "Why are you looking at me like I just jinxed your familiar?"

His eyebrows shot up and for a moment, she thought he genuinely appeared at a loss for what to say. The heartbeat passed before he collected himself, shaking his head and smoothing his dark, longish hair behind his ears. Lowering himself to his knees, he peered into her face.

Oh, dear; that narrow-eyed look was something she recognized too well.

"Yesterday you vanished before my eyes. You didn't Apparate, you simply blipped out of existence right in front of me," he said, his tone low. "How did you do that?"

Hermione bolted upright, wide-eyed and blinking rapidly as she held his gaze. "I did _what_?" His awareness of that moment jarred her—if he was _truly_ a figment of her imagination, lucid dream or not, than he shouldn't be cognizant of how she exited, or the passage of time. Or . . . could that be her mind's doing, too?

The focus of his jet eyes shifted, searching her brown ones as his lips puckered. "That's what I'm asking _you_!"

Only when she felt the brush of his breath, warm against her cheek, did she realize how close they were. Her mouth dropped open as she searched for something to say in response, but she was far too busy pressing herself to ignore her own earlier observation—which was suddenly rushing, screaming, back to her—that Severus Snape had been pleasant to look at this age.

Her brows drew together as she whispered, "Uh . . . ."

Severus arched a brow at her lack of response. He was going to pretend he didn't notice the faint bloom of pink in her cheeks. It couldn't mean anything from a pretty girl like her; pretty girls like her never thought anything about young men like him that could lead them to blush.

"Well?"

Shaking her head, she asked, "Why are you cross with me? I didn't do anything to you." He opened his mouth to speak, but she hurried on. "I said there was something strange going on, didn't I?"

His dark eyes rolled so hard his eyelids fluttered. "Yes, but then you also said you were dreaming."

"Well, yes, just as I _must_ be dreaming, now." Hermione's expression lit up. "Aha! You pinched me, right?"

"Yes," he said, drawing out the word, with a lift of question in his tone.

"And I disappeared after that, right?"

He nodded.

"That proves it!" She knew he probably thought she was speaking nonsense, but she was far too concerned with wondering what was happening.

Well, now his face pulled into an expression she instantly recognized as exasperated. "Proves what?"

"After you pinched me, I woke up. That's why I disappeared from you."

His ever-calculating gaze narrowed once more as his head tipped back just a bit. Even though they were eye-level, the maneuver allowed him to look down at her. "Interesting."

She recognized this look, too—though, admittedly, it had a _much_ different affect on his eighteen-year-old face, than it would on that of her twenty-years-older potions professor. "What is?"

He smirked. _Clearly_ this mystery girl was bright, but so was he, and he felt an advantage at catching something which escaped her notice. "You keep saying this is a dream, and meeting yesterday was a dream . . . . So if you believe that, why did you just say that when you woke up, you _disappeared _from me—a statement which acknowledges that I exist outside of your consciousness—rather than simply saying the dream ended?"

This argument confused her. She didn't like that one little bit, causing her face to pucker in a soured expression. "I must've misspoken. You're showing a rather un-figment-like grasp of your surroundings and it's throwing off my logic."

Frowning, he shifted to sit cross-legged in the grass. "Perhaps because I'm_ not_ a figment of your imagination?"

Hermione folded her arms beneath her breasts and frowned, as well. "Of course you are. How else do you explain that I woke up when you pinched me?"

He mirrored her gesture as he said, "That would be my point, now, would it not? If I am a figment of your imagination, how could I have pinched you awake? If this is a dream, how did you feel pain?"

She started explaining to him the discussion she'd had with Harry—setting out how she could have managed doing that to herself—yet her voice died out half-way through. She didn't sound at all convinced of her own words, nor did he look even remotely persuaded. Her shoulders drooped as she thought it all through, again. Or tried to. If she wasn't dreaming, what exactly was going on, here?

Could it be possible this was somehow . . . _real_?

She shook her head, allowing herself a moment, as he seemed to have no inclination to hurry her along. Yet, no matter how she reconsidered it, she couldn't reconcile what was happening with anything which would make sense.

"I don't understand any of this," she whispered, finally dropping her gaze from his.

"That makes two of us."

He hadn't once reminded her that he'd thought she was insane yesterday—she was still knocked for a loop that he could differentiate one day to the next, but again, how could she be certain this wasn't all her own imagination's doing?

Returning her attention to his face, she asked, "But . . . you don't think I'm mad, now?"

Severus tipped his head to one side, his eyes narrowing at her, yet again. "What part of 'you blipped out of existence right before my eyes' did you misunderstand?"

On the off-chance this was somehow real, she said, "I'm sorry about Lily."

He snapped backward as though she'd struck him, his jet eyes wide. "What?"

His reaction caused a painful clenching in the center of Hermione's chest, but she went on. "Your friend, the girl you grew up with, Lily Evans? I know how you felt—" She paused, swallowing hard and forcing herself to hold his bewildered gaze as she started again. "How you _feel_ about her, and how hurt you must be that she chose James Potter, of all people."

Lips pulling back in a menacing expression, he hissed the words, "How do you—"

"It doesn't matter how I know." Thoughtlessly, she reached out—as she would have done with anyone, perhaps—and grasped his arm. "What matters is that your pain will drive you to make a terrible decision. You might even already be contemplating it. You mustn't do it."

He was equally perplexed and wounded, his voice dropping to a whisper as he said, "Mustn't do what?" What more could this strange girl possibly know?

Perhaps she shouldn't be saying this; after all, if this was real, and she was somehow back in the 1970's, then she shouldn't speak on future event, shouldn't let anyone know she didn't belong here. Yet she couldn't help herself. "You mustn't become a Death Eater."

His entire frame seemed to slump as he shook his head. "Who are you?"

"No one, really," she said with a shrug.

He furrowed his brow. "You know so much about me, but you refuse to even tell me your name?"

"It's Hermione." The words had tumbled from between her lips before she could even stop them.

The sudden fear on her face must have spoken volumes she realized, because he leaned a bit closer, then, whispering, "Is that a secret?"

She couldn't help a tired laugh. "No, but . . . maybe it should be. I'd explain, but you'd just think me mad, again. Maybe I am mad. Maybe this is still all a dream."

"I could always pinch you again," he said, his expression quite serious. His gaze fell from hers as he noticed her hand was still on his arm.

"No, thank you. I actually had a red mark on my arm from that, thanks very much."

Severus' eyes darted about as he thought. Honestly, if she woke up with a mark and still questioned it, what else was there? "We need to prove to you that this either is, or is not, a dream, yes?"

She nodded, that sounded right, but she had no idea how to manage that. "This is rather sad, I'm usually the one with all the bright ideas, but right now I'm just at a loss for what to do. I'm open to suggestions."

He frowned as he considered what to do. He hardly felt like sending her away—she was pretty, intelligent, and didn't shy away from touching him. Who knew when, or even if, she'd return? But if she was somehow here through a dream, then she was bound to wake up eventually, anyway.

Perhaps a red blotch was easy to write off. A facetious, teasing thought flickered across his mind then. He latched onto it, wondering what the harm could be.

"So if pinching you awake was not enough to convince you . . . ." He took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips.

Hermione's eyes widened as she sputtered in a panicked whisper—this was Severus Snape! "What are you doing?"

As he spoke, she could feel his breath against her hand,"Perhaps a more distinct mark will suffice."

Her eyes widened further, still, as she watched him open his mouth over the side of palm. "Wait!"

He ignored her protest, biting down.

* * *

><p>She shot up in bed, a pained sound tearing from her throat as she covered one hand with the other. The side of her palm felt sore and she was afraid to look. For a few drawn out heartbeats, she simply sat there, listening to her own breath. Sunlight was pouring through the thin, wispy curtains, and she spared a moment to wonder how late in the morning it must be.<p>

_How long did I sleep?_

Hermione realized she was trembling, but she didn't quite know why. Nodding to herself, she finally pulled her fingers away from the palm of her other hand.

Her eyebrows shot up as she whispered, "Oh, dear." There, on the side of her hand was the clear impression of teeth.

She frowned darkly. She knew the first thing Harry would say, so—bracing herself—she brought her mark-free hand to her mouth and bit down. Holding her hands out in front of her, she turned them over, examining the marks. The impressions were different; there was no way she could have done this to herself in her sleep.

Sighing, she pressed her hands against her forehead. What the bloody hell?

A glinting caught the corner of her eye, drawing her attention to her pretty bauble. "You," she said in a whisper. "You're responsible, aren't you?"

She felt silly, sitting there quietly as though waiting for the orb to answer. "You're not a Horcrux." No. Harry had told her of Snape's memory—his argument with Dumbledore about the elder wizard's impending demise. Snape would not have been concerned that the killing would rip apart his soul if it had already torn from a previous murder. Hard as it was to believe, the only person who's life he'd ever take was that of Albus Dumbledore.

Even barring that, she highly doubted an egotist like Voldemort would've shared the secret of his seeming immortality with _anyone_.

"So what could you . . . ?"

Shaking her head, she threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, understanding a new possibility for what was happening to her.


End file.
